All posts tagged "violence"

I'm beginning to believe that the New Zealand Herald is a threat to public welfare.

For a long time now it has stoked fear of crime through its prurient reporting. More than one researcher has noted that while the murder rate in New Zealand is declining, space devoted to murder reportage is going up. Over at Editing the Herald, James diligently documents the continuing bullshit campaign from the Herald. They bury the news about the falling murder rate while blaring the gory details of the worst and rarest crimes as though they were commonplace.

But the Herald, not content with scaring the pants off its readers, tries to whip them up by attacking our justice system.

A classic example in the last two day's web browsing: Herald reporter Jared Savage writes breathlessly that a defendant's gang connections were withheld from the jury until after conviction. Jared and his editor presumably know why this is so, and have heard of the concept of "a fair trial", but they don't cover this. The judge's comment is carefully scare-quoted. The "Your Views" topic and the replies are sadly predictable.

I thought I'd see how NZ ranks in per capita murders -- the most reliable indicator for violent crime when comparing countries. The answer is, pretty well. But my friend Julian pointed out a marvellous comment buried down the bottom of the page, presumably from the NZ Herald target demographic:

NZ should be in a worse place than that, our crime is out of control. We have more murders than that we have around 1-2 a week here. (thats the start there is a whole lot of other crime here, read nz herald thats all we have is crime in the paper) The justice system is a disgrace, you get 8-10 years here for murder..and the murder of kids here is appalling, do not raise a family here. In fact do not live here I want to move away fast.

Newspapers often defend themselves on the grounds that they have a civic function, that they serve the public. How is the public being served by their disinformation campaign about crime and justice? How are we served by being frightened? What kinds of bad decisions will be made because of the Herald's misleading reporting?

I am a big fan of James Coe's Editing The Herald, a blog which is "... dedicated to getting angry at things printed in each day's New Zealand Herald". Said anger manifests in a delightfully snarky and intelligent way.

Today's post concerns the Herald's coverage of crime stories, a subject dear to me. In today's post he nails the thing that really bugs me about our news media's obsession with crime stories.

...people, when surveyed, massively overestimate both the level and increase (the speed and acceleration, if you will) of violent crime in this country - and media coverage of crime is at least partly to blame. Of course, in some sense any violent crime is too much, but it seems to me that there are a lot of of negative consequences of this: a siege mentality, a lack of trust in fellow citizens, and an increase in racism and popular support for draconian, expensive and ineffective policy.

I couldn't help but laugh sardonically at the line "overwhelming public believe that the crime rate is increasing."

If that's true, it's because of the "if it bleeds it leads" editorial policy of the nation's news media.

I realise this isn't your fault personally, but perhaps your next stories could look at how the ratio of crime coverage to actual crime over the last two decades has led to the public being so misinformed. (It's true, by the way -- there's been academic research on this for several years now).

There was one glaring omission from your story -- no quote from Garth McVicar! Did he not immediately bust out a press release about this important story on violent crime? Gosh, I wonder why.

Update: on re-reading, I see my email to Mr Collins was so hastily composed as to be barely coherent, which makes it all the more surprising that I received a polite and friendly response. Anyway, dear reader, the reason for my temporary loss of grip on the principles of the English language is this: this kind of thing makes me very cross. STEPHEN SMASH! Thank you.

Thank goodness the Herald Newsdesk is at the forefront of solving crime and tracking down the perpetrators. That's why you should always tell them straight away if you know anything.

I believe there is some goverment agency or other which sometimes collects information on these events, but if it was important to tell them, I'm sure the Herald would have mentioned their contact details.

Auckland correspondent Doug sends me this link to a George Orwell essay: the Sporting Spirit.

Most of the games we now play are of ancient origin, but sport does not seem to have been taken very seriously between Roman times and the nineteenth century. Even in the English public schools the games cult did not start till the later part of the last century. Dr Arnold, generally regarded as the founder of the modern public school, looked on games as simply a waste of time. Then, chiefly in England and the United States, games were built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions, and the infection spread from country to country. It is the most violently combative sports, football and boxing, that have spread the widest.

The Dropkicks have also read the paper linked in my last post: A Message To You.

Around the time when we crashed out of the Rugby World Cup (see, I am a New Zealander, I used the word "we") there was an NZPA article quoting someone from Rape Crisis concerned that there would be more violence against women in the aftermath of the game.

Various people were skeptical of this and wondered whether there was in fact any research behind this notion.

It's not exactly on point, but researchers are on the case. (Full PDF).

There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence that college football games can
lead to aggressive and destructive behavior by fans. However, to date, no
empirical study has attempted to document the magnitude of this
phenomenon. We match daily data on offenses from the NIBRS to 26
Division I-A college football programs in order to estimate the
relationship between college football games and crime. Our results
suggest that the host community registers sharp increases in assaults,
vandalism, arrests for disorderly conduct, and arrests for alcohol-related
offenses on game days. Upsets are associated with the largest increases in
the number of expected offenses. These estimates are discussed in the
context of psychological theories of fan aggression.

Up until this morning I was prepared to wait and see. Maybe the police had over-played their hand, but maybe they were really on to something. Then I got an email from someone I trust, about someone else whom I also know and trust, who had their house searched and their PCs and cellphones confiscated. The rumour then turned out to be true.

I found this interview from National Radio with Derek Fox portrayed events in an entirely different light. He made the point that camo gear, unlicensed weapons and ammo are everyday features of life around Ruatoki where people regularly hunt. Tame Iti has been receiving goverment funding for camps in the Ureweras to teach bushcraft and survival skills. At this stage, everything the police have actually confirmed has a non-terrorist explanation. And Fox filled in the gaps on the history of Tuhoe and their land, which wasn't news to me, but has received little coverage in the press.

I am now starting to reach some tentative and unpleasant conclusions.

The police really are on a "round up the usual suspects" fishing expedition. That's an abuse of police powers.

When the police raid houses in Ruatoki they go in with the Armed Offenders Squad and bust in shouting. When they visit houses owned by Pakeha in Taupo, standard uniform officers knock on the door. That's racism. (Update: or is it? Good point made by David F.)

Neo-nazis in New Zealand also play war games in the bush. They have a history of vandalism, violence, intimidation and firearms offences. They boast online and offline about preparing for race war. But the police don't seem interested in pursuing the terrorist angle there at all. But Maoris with guns? They must be terrorists. That's racism.

Someone is leaking scary rumours like a sieve, and the news media are lapping it up. We are being failed by journalists who are not applying any skepticism at all, either to the police or to others. I mean, who gives a shit what Bomber Bradbury hints at on his blog? Is that news? I'm not buying the angle that it's news that there's a rumour. There's a lot of rumours out there, and I rely on journalists to sort the wheat from the chaff, not to dump a whole more chaff.

If I'm wrong about points 1-4, and the police are right, there must be something horrible just under our noses. So I don't want to be right, and I don't want to be wrong.

I am absolutely prepared to believe that Iti is a nutbar with plans to shoot people, but there's easier, lower-key ways to deal with him than this. In some quarters he will be a cause celebre now.

It looks as though we're going to see the same erosion of civil rights and climate of unjustified fear here that Australia, the UK and the US have experienced. I'm not sure what to do about it yet, but I'm thinking.

At the urging of Kathy and others I went to the police. The police agreed that Something Should Be Done, identifed the car driver, and took his statement. They charged him. My alleged assailant entered a plea of not guilty, then failed to show at a subsequent status hearing and there is now a warrant out for his arrest.

Sometimes, when you are a pedestrian, and some wanker sails through the pedestrian crossing, you may feel tempted to plant a hefty kick in the side of that inconsiderate driver's car. And occasionally, you may succeed. And this time, it maybe wasn't such a good idea, because I have a fat lip like a Simpson's character. Ouch.

Fifteen years is not a significant anniversary, I would have thought. And when the Herald began this story they discovered that no one had anything to say about it. In fact, there was no actual news in this at all. So what was the point? I think they must have run out of new violence porn so they went through the archives to see if they could re-run some old stuff.

The Government is examining a proposal to have children tagged and numbered in a central database to stem abuse and failure at school.

Personal details of every New Zealand child, including welfare and health concerns, would be entered into the database, to be shared by schools, social agencies and health authorities.

It would be similar to Scottish and British initiatives, with a single ID number issued for each child, enabling authorities to be alerted to potential problems.

Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said he had sought advice on setting up such a scheme here.

"I am interested in ensuring that children do not fall through the gaps and that our monitoring of young people is as coordinated as possible."

... Investigations by commissioners into child murders, such as those of half-sisters Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson, had blamed a lack of information-sharing among agencies, [Children's Commissioner Kiro] said. "We've got to get to a point where we stop picking up the pieces when everything goes wrong and start putting things in place to stop it from happening."

This is idiocy. And I'm very disappointed in Anna Chalmers, who wrote the article. Why could she not ask how the most obvious question: how would this database of ID numbers actually solve the alleged problems?

Folks, I've worked in IT for some years now. And this is a very familiar pattern. People identify a problem, put their heads together, and then come up with the answer: a database! Much time and money is invested in the creation of the database, which then lies unused while the problem continues as it did before.

Here, the actual problem is not a technological one. It appears that members of one agency do not talk to members of other agencies; if they do talk together, there is no committment made to action, nor any followup. Clearly these are problems of process, procedure and institutional culture. A database of children will not solve these problems. The same people who fail to pick up the phone will fail to enter information into the database. The same people who ignore pleas to take action will ignore warnings from reports run on the database - if any ever are run. And in a few years' time, once the database is operational, we will be holding enquiries to find out how some new tragedy could have been avoided if only people had used the database properly...

In other words, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Mind you, technology can be really good at fixing such problems, if the barriers to communication are physical. But if the barriers to commnuication are institutional or cultural or social, technology is powerless. Which makes this database a simple non-solution to the wrong problem.

So why has this proposal appeared? Institutional imperatives; the growing temptation for states to spy on their own citizens; the innate desire of bureacrats everywhere to spend large sums on impressive objects, rather than attempt the difficult task of banging heads together; or Rodger's Something Syllogism ("We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this!"). Take your pick. But Anna, if you ever read this, perhaps you could find out?

I had to bike to the new place to let the technician from Vector in. He got the power on and I was just about home, when I noticed an Asian man, Chinese I suppose, scurrying past with an anguished look on his face. He had those slightly too-neat, non-descript clothes that hint at recent emigration. I heard jeers and shouting. I looked ahead, and saw some young lout leaning out the passenger window of a car. The traffic was backed up from the lights at the intersection, an over-loaded hatchback was just opposite the bus stop outside our house, and it was obvious that the lads inside had decided to improve the shining hour with a little racist abuse.

So I feel a squirt in the kidney region, ditch the bike and wander up to the car window. "Have you got a problem?", I ask. "Yes", replies the dopey inmate. He looks about 16. I can smell dak. (Odd — I don't associate marijuana with aggressive behaviour). I can't see the other passengers. This stupid, cruel little shit is all I can focus on. "With him?". "Yeah, with him". "You — you're a fucking embarassment", I find myself bellowing. "Well, you're… an embarassment to Auckland", replies the youth. At this point, I'm about ready to haul him out, and his mates seem ready to haul him in, but the lights change, and they trundle off.

At the same time, I turn around. There's Kathy on the doorstep watching. There's also Dale and Bubs the movers. Dale is one of those extremely broad men who juggles pianos recreationally, and Bubs is 6'2" of palusami. Esimated combined weight over 200kg, I would say. They'd turned out when Kathy told them there was a disturbance outside.

"You shoulda taken him on, we'd'a helped you out and had a break from shifting ya shit!" "Yeah, since ya took the dining table apart, we'd'a had a leg each!"

Insert your own moral here.

Our new neighbours are Chinese, and May makes a very nice smoky-flavoured tea.